What Do You Hear in These Sounds part 11
Author: Carsonfiles
Timeline: This chapter takes place roughly just after the episode with the not-a-spinoff. I have a mental block against the name and number. Later chapters continue to end of Season 3 and beyond. Then A/U (or I'll be really freaked out next fall)
Disclaimer: They aren't mine, but if Shonda doesn't quit bending them in ways they weren't meant to bend, I might have to confiscate them.
Summary: Alex's time in therapy. We did not see his initial session. This session deals with his backstory and is very dark. You know what he's told us about his dad; there's so much he'll never tell.
Goodbye Yellow Brick Road
So goodbye yellow brick road,
Where the dogs of society howl
You can’t plant me in your penthouse
I’m going back to my plough.
Alex entered the room, and sat down in the least comfortable chair. His second appointment with Susan was so not what he wanted to be doing this morning. Ava was on his mind. His intern radar was pinging, and he didn’t know-yet-whether his concern was wholly medical. Not that he was all Izzie over her, but the lady was like, jeez, like his daughter somehow. He’d seen her come into the hospital not knowing anything, and now-well, she still didn’t know anything about herself. But she was able to peg just about everyone else in the hospital. Not him. She was completely wrong about him.
“I’m not that guy,” he blurted out to the therapist.
“Which guy would that be?” Susan’s eyebrows lifted.
“The one who barbeques, plays catch with the kids. Why would anyone think that I’m that guy?” Alex shifted in the chair.
“Who thinks you are that guy?”
“Ava. And so does Dr. Montgomery. Which is dead wrong.”
“But when you were in here before, you told me you were attracted to Dr. Montgomery, right?”
Alex shook his head. “Nope. I said she was hot. And yeah, she’s sexy. And yeah, we had sex. But I’m not her boyfriend.”
Susan tilted her head. “Are you her friend?”
“Guys can’t be friends with hot chicks. Doesn’t work. And I don’t do boyfriend.”
“You don’t do boyfriend?”
“And I won’t do husband.”
“Won’t?”
“Can’t.”
“How was the sex, Alex? Was it worth it?"
“Dude, it was hot supply closet sex. Of course it was worth it.”
“Last time you sat in here and rolled your eyes at all of your fellow interns, having affairs with attendings. What changed?”
“She started it.” Alex shifted, uncomfortable with the juvenile echo in those words.
“She started it, and then what happened?”
“I went for it. I didn’t know she wanted this whole. . .” Alex waved his hands around, “the whole thing. I would have told her. I just thought she wanted to end the bet with Sloane.”
“So you went for it, and had. . .hot supply closet sex. And you don’t want to be her boyfriend?”
“She’s just. . .about a thousand miles from where I am. And I’ll never make it there, never catch up, because I started so far behind.”
“Where did you start?”
When are you gonna come down?
When are you going to land?
Flashback
When Alex was 8, his father took him to gigs.
Which was cool, because he got to hang out with the other guys in the band and their ladies. He’d get one of those non-alcohol beers from the bar, even though they still had a little bit of booze in them and they weren’t supposed to sell to kids. But his dad was in the band, so it was ok. During the show, his dad would hook his smokes under the strings of his bass, and take an occasional drag. Alex would watch as chicks would dance right in front of his dad, showing some skin as they moved. And sometimes when the nights went long, he’d fall asleep in a booth, or in the back of the gig van. And he’d dream of those same ladies, dancing to the rhythms of the bass guitar.
I should have stayed on the farm,
I should have listened to my old man.
When his dad would bring him home, he’d remember being carried in, hearing the pissed voice of his mom. And he’d pretend to still be asleep, because he didn’t like making his mom so pissed, because then she’d just fight with his dad. And the fight would sound like it was about him, but it really wasn’t. It was about the chicks that were dancing in front of his dad, the chicks he could still see, his eyes closed, dancing and grooving with their arms raised over their heads. The chicks who would talk to him during band breaks, gush over how cute he was. The same chicks who would offer to help his dad out after the show. And Alex didn’t know exactly how they would help, they wouldn’t make the load out any easier, but he had an idea. Because he’d seen movies and magazines enough to know how a lady could help out a man.
You know you cant hold me forever,
I didn’t sign up with you.
I’m not a present for your friends to open;
This boys too young to be singing the blues.
By the time he was 18, he could hardly remember adoring his father. Could hardly remember the nights that his dad brought him along to gigs that ended in hissed whispered fights between his mom and dad. Those days were long gone. They didn’t fight about the smokes any more, either, nor the booze. His dad was on to harder drugs, harder women than the coed groupies who used to finish off nights on their knees in the back of the van. He doesn’t remember the first time his dad hit his mom, that’s what he tells himself. He won’t let himself remember that it was one of those after-gig fights, when his mom got a little to much up in his dad’s face about exposing her son to the grimier aspects of life.
He won’t let himself remember that he could smell the comforting combination of nicotine, beer and pot on his dad’s jacket before it all went down. Then his mom just fucking went too far, and Alex was tossed to the ground. He heard the smack of his dad’s hand and his mom hit the wall, and she screamed like an animal. Jesus, his mom was loud. But Rose, his kid sister, never woke up, and Alex scurried to his room to wait it out.
No, he never remembered that.
So goodbye yellow brick road,
Where the dogs of society howl.
You can’t plant me in your penthouse,
I’m going back to my plough.
But he remembered the night the beatings ended. There hadn’t been any gigs for a long time, and so the chicks probably weren’t kneeling down in front of his dad either. He had begged his mom to leave so many times, told her he would help, saved his money from the pathetic part time job bussing tables down at the diner to help her get away.
But she loved him.
That’s what she said-she loved the man who bruised her face, bruised her very self as he degraded her at least once a week. She worked two jobs to pay the rent and for some food. Alex’s dad kept saying that all he needed was a break; a break he would have gotten long ago if he hadn’t been saddled with such a shrew for a wife and two bastard children that he didn’t even think were his.
Back to the howling old owl in the woods,
Hunting the horny back toad.
Oh I’ve finally decided my future lies
Beyond the yellow brick road.
But Alex knew he was his father’s son. From the time of his first shave, when he had splashed water on his face to rinse off the stray hairs and flecks of foam, he had looked up to the mirror to see his father’s sneer. His father’s cocky grin and curled lip. He was his father’s son.
That was the day he went to the weight room of his high school and started working out. And when he had bulked up enough, using some of his saved busboy money to buy the protein powders and vitamins, never the ‘roids though, because that was just another way to become more like his dad, when he could bench twice his own weight, when the other guys on the wrestling team laughed about him not being able to put his arms down when he walked, then he knew he could step in.
But he didn’t. He couldn’t tell you why, but maybe there was some memory there of his dad before the gigs. Before the booze and the smokes and the chicks. And the fights seemed to be going away, getting easier.
Until the night his dad noticed Rose. She was 15 by then, and if she hadn’t been Alex’s sister, he would have agreed that she was hot rather than beating the shit out of any guy who said it. She was hot, but she was smart, and if Alex had his way, she was getting the hell away from this house and this town so that she could be. . .something like happy. But then he saw his dad notice as well, and when his dad noticed, the look in his eyes wasn’t paternal.
What do you think you’ll do then?
I bet that’ll shoot down your plane.
It’ll take you a couple of vodka and tonics
To set you on your feet again.
It was the look he would get when a dancing girl would lift up her arms, and the midriff top would ride up just enough to show the swell of her breast, and that girl would get an invitation to the back of the van. And when his dad (and the rest of the band, because they always split the tips, always) was done, sometimes the girl would be crying too hard to come back inside to meet her friends so they would be sent outside to meet her and take her home.
Alex drew the fucking line right there, because his beautiful sister was no chick. So the next time his dad came home, started something up, Alex stepped in.
He stepped in, and even though his mom begged him not to, he tossed the sonofabitch out on his ass. Followed by whatever ratty clothes Alex felt like giving him.
And the next day when his dad showed back up, all apologetic, Alex met him at the front door. And turned him away.
When he left for Iowa State the next year, he took his sister with him. Enrolled her in the public school near campus. She made straight As those years, and as he was going to med school, she went to ISU. Full ride. This year, the year of his internship was her senior year at college. She was a Tri-Delt. A Phi Beta. She’d edited the newspaper for the last two years. He knew she would make it, that his Rose would have the dream. She could choose, she could have it all if she wanted. And when she married, she would marry a guy who would never touch her, not in anger anyway. And they would have their two kids, and if they were sons, they would play baseball. And her husband could barbeque in the back yard, invite the neighbors for a couple of brewskis.
But not Alex.
He was his fathers son.
Maybe youll get a replacement,
There’s plenty like me to be found-
Mongrels who ain’t got a penny
Sniffing for tidbits like you on the ground.
He thought he could be different, thought he had gotten far enough away. Tried to do it with Izzie. But instead ended up losing to the breathing corpse of Denny Duquette. That was his own fault, because of Olivia. Olivia, who-let’s face it-was the Seattle Grace version of a groupie, totally willing to go down on any doctor who asked. And every morning, as he shaved, when he splashed that water in his face, he confirmed that his father’s face was the one staring back.
And he knew that no woman would want him.
He couldn’t play catch.
He couldn’t barbeque with the neighbors.
He couldn’t be faithful.
He wasn’t that guy.
So goodbye yellow brick road,
Where the dogs of society howl.
You can’t plant me in your penthouse
I’m going back to my plough.
End Flashback
Alex stopped talking. He felt his jaw clench down, felt the grinding of his teeth. Stared at the ceiling. How long would he have to stay in here with the results of this word vomit? He couldn’t even look at Susan, who was listening, judging. His whole career depended on her. He couldn’t advance without her say-so. And now she knew.
Knew about him, knew the truth. And how he’d never be whole, never be able to offer himself to a woman, truly love a woman. It just wasn’t part of him.
But that couldn’t keep him from being a doctor, could it?
His pager went off. Saved by the fucking bell. It was Ava. Either she was crashing or someone didn’t realize where he was right now, but either way he was getting out.
“I’ve got to take this. I’ll make another appointment.” And Alex had run from the room, escaped, before he realized that Susan was still sitting, sadness in her eyes, nearly in tears from the defeat she had heard in the young man’s voice.
Back to the howling old owl in the woods,
Hunting the horny back toad.
Oh, I’ve finally decided my future lies
Beyond the yellow brick road.
Previous Chapters
1-- I don't go to therapy to find out if I'm a freak
2-- I go and I find the one and only answer every week
3-- And it's just me and all the memories to follow
4-- Down any course that fits within a fifty-minute hour
5-- And we fathom all the mysteries, explicit and inherent
6-- When I hit a rut, she says to try the other parent
7-- And she's so kind, I think she wants to tell me something
8-- But she knows that its much better if I get it for myself.
9-- Oooooooh, aaaaaaah, what do you hear in these sounds?
10 I say I hear a doubt and a voice of true believing.
Timeline: This chapter takes place roughly just after the episode with the not-a-spinoff. I have a mental block against the name and number. Later chapters continue to end of Season 3 and beyond. Then A/U (or I'll be really freaked out next fall)
Disclaimer: They aren't mine, but if Shonda doesn't quit bending them in ways they weren't meant to bend, I might have to confiscate them.
Summary: Alex's time in therapy. We did not see his initial session. This session deals with his backstory and is very dark. You know what he's told us about his dad; there's so much he'll never tell.
Goodbye Yellow Brick Road
So goodbye yellow brick road,
Where the dogs of society howl
You can’t plant me in your penthouse
I’m going back to my plough.
Alex entered the room, and sat down in the least comfortable chair. His second appointment with Susan was so not what he wanted to be doing this morning. Ava was on his mind. His intern radar was pinging, and he didn’t know-yet-whether his concern was wholly medical. Not that he was all Izzie over her, but the lady was like, jeez, like his daughter somehow. He’d seen her come into the hospital not knowing anything, and now-well, she still didn’t know anything about herself. But she was able to peg just about everyone else in the hospital. Not him. She was completely wrong about him.
“I’m not that guy,” he blurted out to the therapist.
“Which guy would that be?” Susan’s eyebrows lifted.
“The one who barbeques, plays catch with the kids. Why would anyone think that I’m that guy?” Alex shifted in the chair.
“Who thinks you are that guy?”
“Ava. And so does Dr. Montgomery. Which is dead wrong.”
“But when you were in here before, you told me you were attracted to Dr. Montgomery, right?”
Alex shook his head. “Nope. I said she was hot. And yeah, she’s sexy. And yeah, we had sex. But I’m not her boyfriend.”
Susan tilted her head. “Are you her friend?”
“Guys can’t be friends with hot chicks. Doesn’t work. And I don’t do boyfriend.”
“You don’t do boyfriend?”
“And I won’t do husband.”
“Won’t?”
“Can’t.”
“How was the sex, Alex? Was it worth it?"
“Dude, it was hot supply closet sex. Of course it was worth it.”
“Last time you sat in here and rolled your eyes at all of your fellow interns, having affairs with attendings. What changed?”
“She started it.” Alex shifted, uncomfortable with the juvenile echo in those words.
“She started it, and then what happened?”
“I went for it. I didn’t know she wanted this whole. . .” Alex waved his hands around, “the whole thing. I would have told her. I just thought she wanted to end the bet with Sloane.”
“So you went for it, and had. . .hot supply closet sex. And you don’t want to be her boyfriend?”
“She’s just. . .about a thousand miles from where I am. And I’ll never make it there, never catch up, because I started so far behind.”
“Where did you start?”
When are you gonna come down?
When are you going to land?
Flashback
When Alex was 8, his father took him to gigs.
Which was cool, because he got to hang out with the other guys in the band and their ladies. He’d get one of those non-alcohol beers from the bar, even though they still had a little bit of booze in them and they weren’t supposed to sell to kids. But his dad was in the band, so it was ok. During the show, his dad would hook his smokes under the strings of his bass, and take an occasional drag. Alex would watch as chicks would dance right in front of his dad, showing some skin as they moved. And sometimes when the nights went long, he’d fall asleep in a booth, or in the back of the gig van. And he’d dream of those same ladies, dancing to the rhythms of the bass guitar.
I should have stayed on the farm,
I should have listened to my old man.
When his dad would bring him home, he’d remember being carried in, hearing the pissed voice of his mom. And he’d pretend to still be asleep, because he didn’t like making his mom so pissed, because then she’d just fight with his dad. And the fight would sound like it was about him, but it really wasn’t. It was about the chicks that were dancing in front of his dad, the chicks he could still see, his eyes closed, dancing and grooving with their arms raised over their heads. The chicks who would talk to him during band breaks, gush over how cute he was. The same chicks who would offer to help his dad out after the show. And Alex didn’t know exactly how they would help, they wouldn’t make the load out any easier, but he had an idea. Because he’d seen movies and magazines enough to know how a lady could help out a man.
You know you cant hold me forever,
I didn’t sign up with you.
I’m not a present for your friends to open;
This boys too young to be singing the blues.
By the time he was 18, he could hardly remember adoring his father. Could hardly remember the nights that his dad brought him along to gigs that ended in hissed whispered fights between his mom and dad. Those days were long gone. They didn’t fight about the smokes any more, either, nor the booze. His dad was on to harder drugs, harder women than the coed groupies who used to finish off nights on their knees in the back of the van. He doesn’t remember the first time his dad hit his mom, that’s what he tells himself. He won’t let himself remember that it was one of those after-gig fights, when his mom got a little to much up in his dad’s face about exposing her son to the grimier aspects of life.
He won’t let himself remember that he could smell the comforting combination of nicotine, beer and pot on his dad’s jacket before it all went down. Then his mom just fucking went too far, and Alex was tossed to the ground. He heard the smack of his dad’s hand and his mom hit the wall, and she screamed like an animal. Jesus, his mom was loud. But Rose, his kid sister, never woke up, and Alex scurried to his room to wait it out.
No, he never remembered that.
So goodbye yellow brick road,
Where the dogs of society howl.
You can’t plant me in your penthouse,
I’m going back to my plough.
But he remembered the night the beatings ended. There hadn’t been any gigs for a long time, and so the chicks probably weren’t kneeling down in front of his dad either. He had begged his mom to leave so many times, told her he would help, saved his money from the pathetic part time job bussing tables down at the diner to help her get away.
But she loved him.
That’s what she said-she loved the man who bruised her face, bruised her very self as he degraded her at least once a week. She worked two jobs to pay the rent and for some food. Alex’s dad kept saying that all he needed was a break; a break he would have gotten long ago if he hadn’t been saddled with such a shrew for a wife and two bastard children that he didn’t even think were his.
Back to the howling old owl in the woods,
Hunting the horny back toad.
Oh I’ve finally decided my future lies
Beyond the yellow brick road.
But Alex knew he was his father’s son. From the time of his first shave, when he had splashed water on his face to rinse off the stray hairs and flecks of foam, he had looked up to the mirror to see his father’s sneer. His father’s cocky grin and curled lip. He was his father’s son.
That was the day he went to the weight room of his high school and started working out. And when he had bulked up enough, using some of his saved busboy money to buy the protein powders and vitamins, never the ‘roids though, because that was just another way to become more like his dad, when he could bench twice his own weight, when the other guys on the wrestling team laughed about him not being able to put his arms down when he walked, then he knew he could step in.
But he didn’t. He couldn’t tell you why, but maybe there was some memory there of his dad before the gigs. Before the booze and the smokes and the chicks. And the fights seemed to be going away, getting easier.
Until the night his dad noticed Rose. She was 15 by then, and if she hadn’t been Alex’s sister, he would have agreed that she was hot rather than beating the shit out of any guy who said it. She was hot, but she was smart, and if Alex had his way, she was getting the hell away from this house and this town so that she could be. . .something like happy. But then he saw his dad notice as well, and when his dad noticed, the look in his eyes wasn’t paternal.
What do you think you’ll do then?
I bet that’ll shoot down your plane.
It’ll take you a couple of vodka and tonics
To set you on your feet again.
It was the look he would get when a dancing girl would lift up her arms, and the midriff top would ride up just enough to show the swell of her breast, and that girl would get an invitation to the back of the van. And when his dad (and the rest of the band, because they always split the tips, always) was done, sometimes the girl would be crying too hard to come back inside to meet her friends so they would be sent outside to meet her and take her home.
Alex drew the fucking line right there, because his beautiful sister was no chick. So the next time his dad came home, started something up, Alex stepped in.
He stepped in, and even though his mom begged him not to, he tossed the sonofabitch out on his ass. Followed by whatever ratty clothes Alex felt like giving him.
And the next day when his dad showed back up, all apologetic, Alex met him at the front door. And turned him away.
When he left for Iowa State the next year, he took his sister with him. Enrolled her in the public school near campus. She made straight As those years, and as he was going to med school, she went to ISU. Full ride. This year, the year of his internship was her senior year at college. She was a Tri-Delt. A Phi Beta. She’d edited the newspaper for the last two years. He knew she would make it, that his Rose would have the dream. She could choose, she could have it all if she wanted. And when she married, she would marry a guy who would never touch her, not in anger anyway. And they would have their two kids, and if they were sons, they would play baseball. And her husband could barbeque in the back yard, invite the neighbors for a couple of brewskis.
But not Alex.
He was his fathers son.
Maybe youll get a replacement,
There’s plenty like me to be found-
Mongrels who ain’t got a penny
Sniffing for tidbits like you on the ground.
He thought he could be different, thought he had gotten far enough away. Tried to do it with Izzie. But instead ended up losing to the breathing corpse of Denny Duquette. That was his own fault, because of Olivia. Olivia, who-let’s face it-was the Seattle Grace version of a groupie, totally willing to go down on any doctor who asked. And every morning, as he shaved, when he splashed that water in his face, he confirmed that his father’s face was the one staring back.
And he knew that no woman would want him.
He couldn’t play catch.
He couldn’t barbeque with the neighbors.
He couldn’t be faithful.
He wasn’t that guy.
So goodbye yellow brick road,
Where the dogs of society howl.
You can’t plant me in your penthouse
I’m going back to my plough.
End Flashback
Alex stopped talking. He felt his jaw clench down, felt the grinding of his teeth. Stared at the ceiling. How long would he have to stay in here with the results of this word vomit? He couldn’t even look at Susan, who was listening, judging. His whole career depended on her. He couldn’t advance without her say-so. And now she knew.
Knew about him, knew the truth. And how he’d never be whole, never be able to offer himself to a woman, truly love a woman. It just wasn’t part of him.
But that couldn’t keep him from being a doctor, could it?
His pager went off. Saved by the fucking bell. It was Ava. Either she was crashing or someone didn’t realize where he was right now, but either way he was getting out.
“I’ve got to take this. I’ll make another appointment.” And Alex had run from the room, escaped, before he realized that Susan was still sitting, sadness in her eyes, nearly in tears from the defeat she had heard in the young man’s voice.
Back to the howling old owl in the woods,
Hunting the horny back toad.
Oh, I’ve finally decided my future lies
Beyond the yellow brick road.
Previous Chapters
1-- I don't go to therapy to find out if I'm a freak
2-- I go and I find the one and only answer every week
3-- And it's just me and all the memories to follow
4-- Down any course that fits within a fifty-minute hour
5-- And we fathom all the mysteries, explicit and inherent
6-- When I hit a rut, she says to try the other parent
7-- And she's so kind, I think she wants to tell me something
8-- But she knows that its much better if I get it for myself.
9-- Oooooooh, aaaaaaah, what do you hear in these sounds?
10 I say I hear a doubt and a voice of true believing.